Drugs may be delivered to patients by a variety of methods including oral, intravenous, intramuscular, inhalation, topical, subcutaneous delivery or delivery directly or locally to the treatment site (e.g., intrathecally, intraspinally, intraarticularly, etc.). The method of delivery chosen depends, among other things, upon the condition being treated, desired therapeutic concentration of the drug to be achieved in the patient and the duration of drug concentration that must be maintained.
Recently, drug depots have been developed which allow a drug to be introduced or administered to sites beneath the skin of a patient so that the drug is slowly released over a long period of time. Such drug depots allow the drug to be released from the depot in a relatively uniform dose over weeks, months or even years. This method of administering drugs is becoming especially important and popular in modulating the immune, inflammation and/or pain responses in treatment of chronic conditions including rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, sciatica, carpal tunnel syndrome, lower back pain, lower extremity pain, upper extremity pain, cancer, tissue pain, and pain associated with injury or repair of cervical, thoracic, and/or lumbar vertebrae or intervertebral discs, rotator cuff, articular joint, TMJ, tendons, ligaments, muscles, and the like.
Sometimes the drug depot may be delivered using imagining procedures, such as for example, ultrasound, fluoroscopy, x-ray, etc. Unfortunately, these imaging procedures often do not allow the clinician to detect nerve tissue. Therefore, when the drug depot is implanted at the target tissue site, the nerve tissue is not detected by the imaging procedure so the drug depot will either be implanted at a distance far away from the nerve decreasing efficacy of the drug depot or the nerve may be damaged during drug delivery. Nerve damage from drug delivery may range in severity from mildly annoying to severe disabling nerve problems, such as paralysis.
Therefore, new drug depot methods and devices are needed, which can easily allow accurate and precise implantation of a drug depot near the nerve of the patient causing minimal physical and psychological trauma to the patient. By implanting the drug depot near or in close proximity to the nerve, the drug depot efficacy is improved and the risk of nerve damage from procedure to implant the drug depot is reduced.